Allan Rickards ... wants 75 per cent property tax derating on agricultural lands. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

Allan Rickards, chairman of the Jamaica Sugar Cane Growers' Association (JSCGA), recently cited indiscipline as the main cause for the delay of the divestment of the Sugar Company of Jamaica.

Addressing a Rotary Club of Kingston meeting at The Jamaica Pegasus, New Kingston, Rickards said a subculture of indiscipline which exists in the nation was crippling development in the country as well as the sugar industry.

"Even the signing that should have taken place recently, that did not, is founded in that lack of discipline that besets our organisations and agencies. Work that should have been done was not done, or was not done on a timely basis," he said.

The much-publicised sale of the five state-run sugar factories to the Brazilian firm, Infinity Bio-Energy, which should have been finalised last Tuesday, was postponed. The sugar factories have racked up more than $20 billion in debt.

Said Rickards: "If you apply it (indiscipline) to everything that is wrong, in terms of crime and violence, wrongs in the communities, you will find a situation in which nobody is guilty, everybody is innocent, yet all these wrongs continue."

The JSCGA chairman pointed to two private-run factories, Appleton Estate, in St Elizabeth, and Worthy Park, in St Catherine, which, although working within an unstable industry, are still "making money".

"It reflects a difference in discipline of management ... said Rickards.

According to him, the subculture of indiscipline, if addressed, can change, but it will take years.